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If you're building or upgrading a budget gaming rig, it'll be hard to ignore the GeForce GTX 650 and 660. Whether or not NVIDIA's new chipsets are worth the glance is another matter, and early reviews suggest that a sale depends on just which market you're in. The GTX 660, by far the darling of the review crowd, competes solidly against the Radeon HD 7850 by outrunning AMD's hardware in most situations while undercutting on the official price. Only a few have taken a look at the lower-end GTX 650, but it's not as much of a clear-cut purchasing decision -- the entry-level video often slots in between the performance of the Radeon HD 7750 and 7770 without the price edge of its bigger brother. Either card is much better value for the money than the GT 640, however, and looks to be a meaningful upgrade if you're trading up from equivalent prior-generation gear.

Whenever there's a new video card or processor, Maingear is almost always on the scene with an upgrade -- sometimes within seconds of its hardware partners. A plan to use NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 650 and 660 graphics chips from day one proves that rule in style, although Maingear is going the distance with some incentives beyond just shiny parts. Along with making the mid-tier GeForce technology an option for every desktop, the PC builder is offering special GTX 650 and 660 versions of its F131 and Potenza gaming rigs that knock as much as $150 off the price. The base prices of $949 for the limited-run Potenza and $1,199 for the F131 keep either system in serious gamer territory and preclude us from calling them tremendous bargains. Nonetheless, it's difficult to grouse very loudly: it's not often that a price drop and a hardware upgrade walk hand in hand.